Masdevallia: farmhouse for happiness

The Masdevallia orchid is native to the hills of Mexico, Peru and Brazil, but it is also found on the coasts. In addition to their unique flavor, the tapered shape of their flowers as from a point on their ends is extraordinary. The cultural Cold Masdevallias their flowers pure white, those of temperate and warm culture offer a variety of flamboyant colors: red, pink, fuchsia, orange and many others. Apart from the variety coccinea, these orchids are compact enough to be able to find them a little cool, especially if you live in an apartment. If you can offer these conditions, among temperate species are growing, here are the following: mejiana, echo, minuta, striatella, mooreana, bangii, attenuata, tovaneris, venezualana ... And of those cultural hot, you can find them: glandulosa, sprucei, vargasi, wendlandia, trobelli, weberneri, Livingston, nicaraguae, floribunda .... The list is long. The only real thing that changes between culture and the other two cold is the temperature. For the first, it will not exceed 24 ° C during the day in summer, and stay around 20 ° C day and 10 ° C at night, and this year without any changes. If you wear your choice to the other two cultures, you can increase the levels of 2 and 4. In any case, keep a good temperature difference between day and night to induce flowering. This will take place between late autumn and early winter. You can place the orchid in a clay pot with a draining compost, avoid plastic pots because water in danger of stagnating, or else to pierce holes on the sides. For compost, take pine bark, perlite and peat moss or charcoal treated, you will easily find all this in the garden. His frequent watering should be, be your own judge as his compost should be kept moist, but be sure not to soak. To avoid this, give him a constant ventilation or you could see the roots to rot. Especially not for mister because it easily develop mushrooms at the base of the leaves. Every week, give NPK fertilizer during the growing season you can pay twice a week. However, it will flush the roots once a month because the salt fertilizer may stagnate and dry. Do not add fertilizer during periods of high heat because its growth is slower. His potting takes place every two years, place the fine roots in a basin of warm water and you Bring a soft brush to properly remove the old compost. She does not like direct sunlight, you'll know when you'll notice red spots on its leaves; provide him maximum 20 000 lux. Similarly, throughout the year, do not exceed 20 ° during the day and always around 10 degrees at night.